Apparently, Someone Forgot to Give Me the Gay Plant Gene

I would like to formally report an administrative error in the distribution of gay genetics.

Someone forgot to give me the plant gene.

You know the one.

The gene that apparently allows gay men to walk into a nursery, glance at a plant for four seconds, whisper, “Oh, she’s dramatic but manageable,” and then keep that bitch alive for seventeen years.

I did not receive it.

I got other things.

I can decorate.

I understand accent lighting.

I have strong opinions about furniture placement.

I can look at a room and immediately identify the one object that needs to move six inches to the left.

My house understands seasonal décor with a level of precision normally associated with military operations.

Halloween arrives.

Christmas arrives.

There are transitions.

There are themes.

There may be spreadsheets.

So clearly, several departments showed up during my assembly.

Botany apparently had the day off.

Because I cannot keep a fucking plant alive.

And I have tried.

Oh, have I tried.

Every few years I convince myself that I've matured.

Maybe this is the version of me who can have plants.

Maybe I've reached the age where I casually own a monstera.

I see other gay men's houses on Instagram. They've got enormous tropical plants surrounding a beautifully styled chair nobody has ever actually sat in.

Leaves everywhere.

Vines elegantly cascading down bookshelves.

Some giant plant in the corner that apparently requires seventeen gallons of humidity and the exact amount of indirect sunlight found on the northern coast of Brazil between 10:17 and 11:42 in the morning.

And somehow Trevor keeps it alive.

Trevor doesn't even seem concerned about it.

“Oh, she's easy.”

NO SHE IS NOT, TREVOR.

SHE HAS REQUIREMENTS.

Meanwhile, I bring home a pothos because everyone tells me they're impossible to kill.

Challenge accepted, apparently.

I put it near a window.

It turns yellow.

Okay.

Too much light.

I move it away from the window.

It turns brown.

Okay.

Not enough light.

I water it.

It gets sad.

I don't water it.

It gets sadder.

I mist it.

Now it's apparently offended and damp.

At some point I'm standing over this thing like a Victorian physician examining a tuberculosis patient.

“What do you WANT from me?”

Nothing.

Not a word.

Just another leaf dramatically dropping onto the floor.

Plant people are no help.

“You have to listen to your plants.”

Listen to them?

THEY DON'T SPEAK.

If Xena needs something, she will make her position extremely clear.

If Roxi needs something, she will launch a full congressional investigation into why breakfast has not yet occurred.

Plants?

Plants just quietly deteriorate while making you guess what crime you've committed.

One day they're fine.

The next morning you walk downstairs and the ficus looks like it has seen the face of death.

Then you Google it.

This is where the real bullshit begins.

“Brown leaves can indicate overwatering.”

Okay.

“Brown leaves can also indicate underwatering.”

EXCUSE ME?

Those are the two options.

That's like WebMD saying your headache may be caused by having too much head or not enough head.

How am I supposed to work with this information?

And every plant website is like:

“Insert your finger approximately two inches into the soil and assess the moisture.”

I am not fingering a fern to determine its emotional state.

We have reached the boundary of this relationship.

So recently, after yet another round of botanical hospice care, I made a decision.

I fired the plants.

All of them.

There was no severance package.

There was no exit interview.

Security was notified.

We appreciate their contributions to the organization and wish them well in their future endeavors.

I replaced them with fake plants.

And HOLY SHIT.

Where have these been all my life?

These are my kind of plants.

They ask nothing of me.

Absolutely nothing.

No watering.

No fertilizer.

No repotting.

No humidity monitoring.

No special soil purchased from an Etsy witch in Vermont.

They don't care where the windows are.

They don't care which direction the house faces.

They don't need me to rotate them one-quarter turn every three days during a waxing moon.

They sit there.

They look fabulous.

They mind their fucking business.

Finally.

A healthy relationship.

I can leave for vacation and come home seven days later and you know what?

STILL GREEN.

Nobody died.

Nobody dropped seventeen leaves onto the floor as a passive-aggressive statement about abandonment.

Nobody developed mysterious white spots requiring me to join a Facebook group called Houseplant Parents of Central New Jersey.

Just beautiful, emotionally stable polyethylene foliage.

And fake plants have gotten GOOD.

We're not talking about the plastic ficus from your grandmother's living room in 1987.

You remember that thing.

Shiny leaves.

Brown plastic trunk.

Sitting next to a brass lamp and a basket filled with decorative balls nobody understood.

Today's fake plants have texture.

Variation.

Imperfect leaves.

Some of them have fake dirt.

FAKE DIRT.

We've reached the point where manufacturers are intentionally putting flaws on plastic leaves because apparently even fake plants understand that perfection looks suspicious.

I bought one recently and caught myself wondering whether it needed water.

For approximately three seconds.

Then I remembered:

No.

Because I have finally beaten agriculture.

This is evolution.

Human beings spent thousands of years learning how to cultivate plants.

I have spent approximately forty minutes learning how to avoid the entire process.

And I am thriving.

The plants are thriving.

Everybody is thriving because nobody involved is actually alive.

I have accepted that I am not a plant parent.

I am a plant decorator.

That distinction is important.

I want greenery.

I want texture.

I want a little something next to the bookshelf that says, “A sophisticated adult lives here.”

I do not want another dependent.

I already have dogs.

Those come with considerably better communication systems.

So yes.

My plants are fake.

All of them.

Judge me if you want.

I'll be over here dusting my monstera twice a year while your real one is developing root rot because Mercury went into retrograde or you watered it on a Tuesday.

Somewhere out there, another gay man accidentally received my green-thumb gene.

He's probably living in a jungle apartment right now surrounded by forty-seven flourishing plants, casually propagating something in a mason jar while telling people, “Honestly, they're really easy once you understand them.”

Good for him.

I hope he's happy.

Because apparently there was some kind of genetic trade involved.

He got my plant gene.

And judging by the amount of Halloween and Christmas décor currently stored in my house?

I got his seasonal decorating allocation.

And you know what?

I'll take that fucking deal.